There was no escaping the pain, not even in sleep. It coiled in every jointure, bone, and ounce of flesh. Keir had never been sick like this before, in control of nothing, devolving into something less than human. Except when she was there.
She . . . her . . . He couldn’t hold on to her name . . . it kept darting away from him . . . but he was aware of her soft presence, her voice like honey, her hands bestowing cool, sweet calm on his tortured body.
But for all her softness, there was steel in her. She was unrelenting when it came time to dose him with medicines he didn’t want. She made him sip water or broth despite his struggles to keep anything down. There was no bloody refusing her. This was a woman who would keep him anchored safely to the earth, to life, with the force of her will.
During the worst of it, when Keir was maddened by suffocating heat, and every breath felt like someone was stabbing a peat knife into his chest, the woman packed ice around him, or bathed him all over with cool cloths. It mortified and infuriated him to lie there helpless and naked as a wee bairnie while she took care of his intimate needs, but he was too damned sick to do anything for himself. He needed her, both the softness and the steel.
She assured him that he would be better soon. He’d fallen, she said, and his lungs had been injured, but they were healing. A wound on his back was causing the fever, but that too would heal.
Keir wasn’t so sure. The hot, pulsing place on his back seemed to be worsening by the hour, spreading poison through him. Soon he couldn’t keep even water down, and instead of worrying about dying, he began to worry about not dying. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop writhing from pain and nausea. He’d have welcomed any escape.
He felt a touch on his forehead and slitted his eyes open. A stranger stood beside him, tall and stern-faced, blindingly handsome, with silvery-gold hair. He looked like an angel. Not the kind offering comfort—the kind sent to smite people. Almost certainly this was the angel of death, and about time he appeared. Even hell would be better than this.
But instead of escorting Keir to the hereafter, the man pressed a fresh iced cloth to his forehead. As Keir writhed and panted in a red welter of fever, he felt the covers being drawn away, and someone began to lift the hem of his nightshirt. Riled by the indignity, he struck out blindly, trying to knock away the unfamiliar hands.
“Keir. Rest easy, boy.” The stranger was leaning over him, speaking in a low, lulling voice that would have caused an entire sounder of wild boars to curl up like kittens. “We have to bring the fever down.”
“Not you,” Keir managed to gasp. “I want her.”
“Lady Merritt has gone to bed for a few hours of badly needed rest. Do you remember me? No? I’m Kingston. This fine old fellow beside me is Culpepper—he’s been my valet for twenty-five years. Lie back now, there’s a good lad.”
Keir subsided warily while the odd pair—one golden and resplendent, one old and wizened—moved around him with quiet efficiency. The nightshirt was removed and a towel was draped over his hips. They cold-sponged his limbs, dressed him in a fresh nightshirt, and changed the sheets while he remained in bed. As Kingston reached around Keir and lifted him to a sitting position, he began to struggle.
“Calm yourself,” Kingston said, sounding faintly amused. “I’m keeping you upright for a moment while Culpepper tucks the lower sheet around the mattress.”
Having never been held by another male in his adult life, Keir would have balked, but he was too weak to sit up on his own. To his eternal humiliation, his head lolled forward onto the man’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Kingston said, holding him securely. “Lean against me.”
The man was remarkably fit, Keir would give him that. The form beneath the fine cotton shirt and soft wool waistcoat was sleek and rock-solid. And there was something so comfortable about his manner, so calm, that Keir relaxed despite himself. He tried to think, but his head was a maze of dead ends and trapdoors. Nothing about the situation made sense to him.
An onset of fever chills started his teeth chattering. “Why are you doing this?” he managed to ask.
It might have been his imagination, but Kingston’s arms seemed to tighten a little. “I have sons who are approximately your age. If one of them were ill and far from home, I would wish for someone to do this for them.”
Which wasn’t really an answer.
“I’m going to lower you now,” Kingston said. “Don’t strain yourself—let me do the work.” Carefully he settled Keir among the pillows and weighted him with blankets. He laid a hand over Keir’s forehead. “Culpepper,” he asked quietly, “when is the doctor scheduled to stop by?”
“This afternoon, Your Grace,” the valet replied.
“I want him here within the hour.”
“I believe he’s on his rounds, sir—”
“His other patients can wait. Send a footman out to find him.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
In a moment, Keir felt a cold compress on his forehead. “I dinna give a damn about the doctor,” he muttered. “I want her . . . Merritt. Dinna have long.”
“Nonsense,” Kingston said with such cool conviction that Keir almost believed him. “I’ve survived fever worse than this. You’ll pull through it.”
But the next time Keir struggled up from the depths of sleep, he knew he was worse. The fever was raging, ruckling every breath and making him weaker than he’d ever been in his life. He was lying amid sharp angles of pain with no soft place to rest.
He became aware of the woman beside him, her pretty dark eyes filled with concern, her face tense and pale. He reached out, trying to pull her to him.
She hushed him gently and sat on the mattress, and stroked his hair with cool hands. The doctor was there, she said, to drain the wound and change the bandages, and Keir must stay still. He felt himself being turned to his front, carefully, but it sent a jolt of agony through his rib cage. The bandage on his back was removed, and he felt something prying at the searing, tender wound. A billow of pain provoked a rude churn of his stomach and a dry heave, and he growled wretchedly.
Merritt moved to cradle his head in her lap. “There, now,” she soothed, while the jabbing and pressing continued. “Not much longer. Hold on to me. Let the doctor do his work, and then you’ll be better. Almost finished . . . almost . . .”
Keir gritted his teeth, willing to tolerate anything for her. Shaking from the lancing pain, he focused on the feel of her soft fingers at the back of his neck.
There was a sting and burn on the right side of his arse, and then every sensation joined into one dull mass. He went numb in every limb, his mind floating. As the woman began to move away, he used the last of his strength to reach around her hips and keep her right there, his head in her lap. He was drifting aimlessly, cast loose in some uneasy current, and she was all that kept him from drowning. To his relief, she stayed, her fingers threading lightly through his hair.
Fearing she’d leave when he fell asleep, he told her he needed her to stay with him. Or at least, that was what he wanted to say. Words and their meanings were running together like paint on wet paper. But she seemed to understand. She murmured something, soft as the coo of a night bird, and he settled more heavily against her, letting the current carry him to some dark, silent place.
